Last year, Lori Bjork found herself near the bottom of the media’s pecking order for sound bites from the Terrapin women’s basketball team.
It made sense — the guard was a transfer from Illinois sitting out a year in which two future top-three WNBA draft picks would lead the team to an ACC regular season title, an ACC Tournament title and a spot in the NCAA Tournament South Region final. There were certain players coach Brenda Frese wanted to feature and the media wanted to cover, and in either case, Bjork didn’t figure in.
Yesterday, she did.
“I was kind of curious to see if anyone would want to talk to me today,” Bjork joked before a handful of curious reporters at the team’s media day inside Comcast Center.
By necessity, the unknown — and this year’s Terps have no shortage of that — has become the story for a program who bid farewell to the last of the leftovers from its 2005-2006 National Championship team. On a team with nine freshmen and sophomores, Bjork is the lone upperclassman.
Still, she’s just as unproven as the team — Bjork hasn’t scored a point yet in a Terps uniform.
“As we’re putting in a lot of new things with this young team, we’re finding that it doesn’t come quite as easily as it once did,” Frese said.
Losing guards Kristi Toliver and Marissa Coleman can do that to a team. Toliver, a first-team Associated Press All-American last season, averaged 18.4 points per game for the 31-win Terps last season. Coleman, a three-time All-ACC selection, chipped in 18.1 points and 8.6 rebounds per game and single-handedly willed the Terps to a NCAA Tournament South Region semifinal victory with a 42-point performance in the team’s 78-74 win over Vanderbilt.
After Coleman and Toliver went No. 2 and 3, respectively, in April’s WNBA Draft, Frese didn’t have to wait much longer to take two more blows to this season’s prospects. On April 10, sophomore forward Drey Mingo announced her intent to transfer.
Three days after that, sophomore starting guard Marah Strickland did the same.
The hits would only keep coming. Less than two weeks ago, starting forward Dee Liles was booted from the team for academic reasons.
With only one returning starter (forward Lynetta Kizer), one senior (Bjork) and a horde of green underclassmen, Frese’s mission is as unfamiliar as it is daunting: replace nearly 80 percent of last year’s scoring and the winningest class in the program’s history.
“When you look at our team, I think the first thing that jumps out at you is that there are going to be a lot of question marks this season,” Frese said. “We are very unproven.”
At this point, Kizer is about the only name on the roster without any lingering uncertainties. After a freshman campaign in which she earned 2009 ACC Rookie of the Year honors, posting 11.1 points and 7.3 rebounds per game, the biggest questions focus not on her ability, but on how far those skills can take the Terps.
Kizer will likely share the paint with talented freshman forward Tianna Hawkins, improved sophomore center Yemi Oyefuwa or 6-foot-7 freshman center Essence Townsend, the tallest player in Frese’s tenure.
“We have young post players here,” Kizer said. “They need to hear and see the things that we do here at Maryland … . I’m just giving my knowledge that I have from my one year here and then myself learning from everyone and soaking it in together.”
At guard, the void left by Toliver and Strickland figures to be filled by a combination of Bjork, sophomores Anjalé Barrett and Kim Rodgers and freshman Dara Taylor.
Bjork is a versatile three-point specialist and two-time All-Big Ten selection. A slimmer and quicker Barrett is fully healthy after coming back from a persistent knee injury, while Rodgers is expected to make a complete recovery from offseason knee surgery. Taylor, meanwhile, is “by far the quickest point guard we’ve had in the program,” according to Frese.
Yesterday, Taylor admitted the road to continuing the program’s dominance won’t be without its speed bumps. Still, her goals are no different than last year’s vaunted squad.
“We’re not feeling sorry for ourselves at all,” Taylor said. “We’ve lost most of our scoring; we’re all young. And nobody cares. We don’t even think about it. We’re another team at Maryland looking to win a championship.”
shaffer@umdbk.com
